American Standard Version

The
Lamentations of Jeremiah

Chapter 2

How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his
anger! He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, And
hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

The Lord hath swallowed up all the
habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: He hath thrown down in his wrath the
strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He hath brought them down to the ground;
he hath profaned the kingdom and the princes thereof.

He hath
bent his bow like an enemy, he hath stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And hath slain all that were pleasant to the eye: In the tent of the daughter
of Zion he hath poured out his wrath like fire.

The Lord is become as an enemy, he hath
swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed
his strongholds; And he hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and
lamentation.

And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he
hath destroyed his place of assembly: Jehovah hath caused solemn assembly and
sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, And hath despised in the indignation of his
anger the king and the priest.

The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his
sanctuary; He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her
palaces: They have made a noise in the house of Jehovah, as in the day of a
solemn assembly.

Jehovah hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He hath
stretched out the line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying; And he
hath made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.

The
elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they keep silence; They
have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

Mine eyes do fail with tears,
my heart is troubled; My liver is poured upon the earth, because of the
destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the young children and the
sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.

What shall I testify unto thee? what shall I
liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to thee, that I
may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? For thy breach is great like the
sea: who can heal thee?

All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide against thee; They hiss
and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; Certainly this is the
day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.

Jehovah hath done that which he
purposed; he hath fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old; He
hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: And he hath caused the enemy to rejoice
over thee; he hath exalted the horn of thine adversaries.

Arise, cry out in the night,
at the beginning of the watches; Pour out thy heart like water before the face
of the Lord: Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
that faint for hunger at the head of every street.

See, O Jehovah, and behold to
whom thou hast done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that
are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the
sanctuary of the Lord?

Thou hast called, as in
the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side; And there was none that
escaped or remained in the day of Jehovah's anger: Those that I have dandled
and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.